


In the Eye of the Beholder

by Rioghna



Series: 7 Days, 7 Prompts [7]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Enchanted Forest, Angst, Body Image, F/M, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Tumblr Prompt, daddy's little girl !verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-01
Updated: 2015-03-01
Packaged: 2018-03-15 20:01:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3460145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rioghna/pseuds/Rioghna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Day Seven- Seven Days, Seven Prompts<br/>Belle-and-her-books prompted:  Daddy's Little Girl" 'verse: Rose uses magic to make herself look more 'normal' because she thinks Belle is upset her daughter doesn't look more like her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Eye of the Beholder

 

 

Rose sighed as she finished the magic book in front of her. She had now looked through her entire (meager) collection of books on magic but could find nothing. Perhaps it was time to explore her father's. She was seated in her own laboratory, as her father called it, a small room adjoining his tower that he had given her when he'd started to teach her magic.

Teaching her magic had been a bit of a sore subject in the castle, and one of the few things that her parents had ever argued over. Her mother was more or less completely non magical aside for the magic of True Love (also a rather complicated issue, one that she only barely understood). But her Papa had won the argument after reminding Belle that their daughter did have magic and not training her was not an option unless they wanted bigger problems, like her accidentally turning someone into something in a fit.

It was the exact subject of the curse, or rather the appearance of the curse, that had her doing research now. They weren't exactly certain how she had ended up sharing her father's appearance in the first place. When her mother had kissed him, it had broken the hold of the curse of the Dark One on him. Oh, he still had the magical dagger, but it was now nothing more than a relic and a story they had told her at bedtime when she was a baby. Her father had explained that he no longer had to share his body and soul with all of those that had come before him. "Now my only darkness is my own," he said. "And that is a battle I have to fight myself, as everyone does. Of course, your mother helps."

"Then why do you still look like that?" she'd asked him once, when she was a little younger than she was now. Not that it had bothered her, then or now. He was her papa no matter what he looked like. But she knew that he had once looked like everyone else.

"I suppose I could turn back," he'd said. "But it reminds me of how far I have come, of who I was and who I let myself become. Besides, after three hundred years of looking at this face in the mirror, I'm not certain I would recognise myself. It would feel a little strange. Why, do you want me to change?" he'd asked her and of course she'd said no.

Now she wasn't so sure. Not that she wanted her father to change, but if he knew how, then she could find the answers for herself. Rose had always known she was different or at least as long as she could remember. She'd accepted it, she was like her Papa, right down to the magic, and she'd always been comfortable with it, and so were her parents, or so she thought. It had caused some problems. There were children who wouldn't play with her, and it had hurt her feelings when someone called her a monster because she was different. Her mother had held her, told her that there would always be someone like that, who wouldn't like her for something. Belle had said that when she was a girl, she was teased for preferring to read to doing other things, and there were children that didn't like her for a variety of reasons, some a lot smaller than her appearance. Rose had also learned that there were some who would play with her anyway, or wouldn't be allowed to play with her because her father was the lord of the Castle, or because they were afraid of him. It wasn't nice, but the friends she made would be more true.

Bae said he'd had that problem when he was young, with people not wanting their children to play with him, first because Papa had been poor and branded a coward. After he'd changed, Bae said he got scary for a while and the other children were afraid of him. Of course, Bae had also offered to blacken the other eye of the village boy she'd gotten into a fight with when she was six. The boy had called her 'lizard girl' and poked her with a stick. Rose had promptly punched him in the eye. She'd been in trouble for that. Her mother made her stay in the castle for a week, and she had to clean the entrance hall without any magical help for a month. But her friend Lily told her that his father had him cleaning the barn all the way down to the dirt and clearing up after the pigs, 'cause if he was going to act like an animal he should spend more time with them'.

Of course that was in their village. Everyone there knew them and after a while, no one seemed to notice that Rose was a little different, she was just another of the children. They were used to seeing her running down from the castle for straw or to get something for her Mama. It was different in the city. There, she spent most of her time with Princess Emma, who was her other best friend. At court, there was always someone who hated someone else for something stupid. Princess Alexandra would talk about it, gossiping with the other older girls, but it had little to do with them. She was a snob and too busy primping and making eyes at boys to notice them. Rose had friends there as well, Kathryn (daughter of Princess Abigail and Prince Fredrick), and Hugh (son of Princess Aurora and Prince Phillip) were a lot of fun, and they were her friends. But when they went on adventures outside the castle, or in the capital city, she wore a cloak with a deep hood to hide her face, like her Papa did. Rose had always known it was to protect her from people who wouldn't understand her. Still, it hadn't really been something she'd worried about, not until recently.

Then the week before, just after she had been told that she couldn't go to Hugh's birthday party because his grandfather didn't like the idea of 'someone like her' coming (she'd not been supposed to hear that part), she had happened on her mother talking with Queen Snow. She knew she shouldn't have been listening but it had kind of been an accident. Rose was going to find her mother to ask her a question, when she'd heard them talking.

"But another one like her, I'm not sure I'm up to the challenge," she heard her mother telling Snow White. There was a lot of the conversation that she couldn't hear, even straining her extraordinary hearing. But the one thing she had been certain of, the words that hurt the most, "not looking like the others." Rose had listened a little longer, hoping that she could get more, that she was misunderstanding what it was she was hearing. But the door was thick and there was the clatter of tea things, and nothing else came to her but the odd word.

Rose had run to her room and closed the door for a good cry. She'd always thought her mother loved the way she looked. She would always tell her how beautiful she was, and how much like her father. Rose had been happy. But now she knew her mother wanted her to be normal. It had hurt like nothing else ever had.

So here she was, digging through all of her books trying to figure it out, a way to make her Mama happy. Of course, Rose had experimented with transformations before, but never on herself. Her father always said that magic was a matter of intention and focus, but so far that hadn't worked. But if it made her Mama happy, she would just have to keep trying.

 

Belle was sitting in front of the fireplace in the Great Hall, a book open in her lap, but she wasn't reading. Something was wrong with Rose. She'd known it for days, but every time she tried to talk to her about it, the girl would say she was 'fine'. Some of the other mothers she knew had talked about this, the secretive phase where they didn't want to be around their parents, but somehow, she'd thought they would be able to avoid that. She and her daughter had always been close, after all. Besides, Rose was a little young for that kind of thing, which usually came with the transformation into womanhood, not the mention the discovery that boys weren't 'yucky'.

Then there was the way she'd been locking herself away in her miniature laboratory, her version of Rumple's tower, furnished with equipment and books appropriate to her skill and age level, or so Rumple had assured her. So far, she'd not blown anything up, which was more than could be said for her father.

Belle had never been one hundred percent in favour of her daughter learning magic. She just didn't trust it the way Rumple did. On the other had, after several 'accidents', it became clear that their daughter needed to learn to control her magic before someone got hurt. She'd given in, though of course there had been limits. Now she was starting to wonder. Her daughter was either caught up on some special project (she did inherit her mother's love of research, something she had encouraged) or she was really upset about something and wasn't talking about it. But Rose had spent almost every waking moment in there for the past week at least. Certainly she had noticed it the day that Snow had visited, on her way to Abigail's kingdom. At least they had discussed the plans for Emma's grand thirteenth birthday party, to which they were invited. Perhaps the thought of seeing Emma would bring Rose out of her...whatever it was.

Snow had asked Belle if she would help chaperone, but Belle just wasn't certain she would be up to it, especially with some of the girls Snow couldn't fail to invite. It made Belle grateful that Rumple was as anti social as he was, that she could simply fail to invite anyone to anything. But then they weren't royalty, merely nobility, that and being married to a feared sorcerer gave one a lot of leeway. It occurred to Belle that perhaps she was fretting for nothing. She'd been feeling a little off recently, and she was starting to wonder if their little family was about to get bigger. Maybe it was nothing more than that. With her mind whirling, she failed to notice she was no longer alone.

"Mama." Belle looked up and dropped her book.

"R-R-Rose, what..." she said faintly as she looked at the girl in front of her. Her chestnut hair, which had always been curly, was now completely straight, her delicate claws replaced with human fingernails. But the biggest and most startling change was in her skin. No longer was she the lovely shade of gold, with delicate scales highlighting her cheekbones and setting off her eyes. She was...normal. Of course, she was still beautiful, but Belle didn't know what to think. She just didn't look like her daughter. What happened?" she said, finally getting words out.

"Do you like it, Mama?" Rose asked. The girl sounded so proud of herself, but as she looked at her mother, she started to feel a little confused. It wasn't the response she was expecting.

"Rumplestiltskin," Belle called out. "Now, Rose, darling, come over here, are you alright?" her mother said, suddenly hustling her onto the settee. "Tea," she snapped. Belle might not have magic, but she'd learned to use some of the amenities of living in a magic castle.

"I'm fine, Mama," Rose said, getting even more confused by the second. Wasn't this what her Mama had wanted, her to be normal?

"Wait 'til your father gets here. We will get this all..."

Rumplestiltskin appeared in a *poof* of purple smoke (he'd explained to Rose that it wasn't necessary, but the warning made people feel better). "Belle, what the... Holy fucking fairies on fire," he exclaimed catching sight of his beloved daughter for the first time. "What happened?" he asked. It was a measure of Belle's concern that she said nothing about his language.

""I don't know, perhaps we should ask your daughter? Rose, what happened?" Her mother said, with a hand on her husband's arm. "Did someone do this to you?"

"I did it," Rose said. This was worse than she expected. Of course she thought her parents would be surprised, and she expected that she might be in trouble for trying new magic without her father present. But she didn't understand. Her mother wanted her to be normal, didn't she? But she was acting as if something was wrong. "Don't you like it?" she asked. She could feel tears starting to well up. "I thought you wanted me to be normal. Am I really that ugly now?" Rose asked. All her hard work had failed, she realised. Somehow, she had done something really bad. Belle came towards her and put an arm around her shoulders, looking at her father.

Rumplestiltskin shrugged at his wife.

"You're beautiful, love, you always have been. But it's a bit of a shock. Where did you get the idea that we would like you to be any other way?" she asked.

"It's just the other day, when you were talking to Queen Snow...and Papa's always so careful about me going out in strange places and...I just..." Rose started crying softly.

Belle wrapped her arms around her daughter. "Oh, sweetheart. What have I been telling you all your life about jumping to conclusions, or about listening at doors for that matter? I'm not certain what you heard or thought you heard, but I love you. I love you just the way you are, or the way you were. Love means loving everything, inside and out, flaws and all. Are you unhappy with the way you are? If you are, I might understand, but I happen to think that you are the most beautiful girl in all the kingdoms."

Rose thought about what her mother said. Mama had never been anything but supportive of her, reassuring her when the kids teased her (though she did get in trouble for that punch), reminding her to look beneath the surface for her friends. She wasn't certain why she had thought her mother of all people would be happier if she looked like everyone else, unless maybe, deep down inside, she thought there was something wrong with herself?

Of course, Papa was like her, and Mama loved him. Rose had always been rather proud of looking like her father, it let people know she was his daughter. Okay, some people had thought she was a monster, but then they'd all been pretty nasty people to begin with.

"Rosie love," her papa said, reaching to put his arm around her from the other side. "Are you unhappy the way you've always been, does it bother you?"

Rose thought about it. When she had looked at herself in the mirror after the transformation, she'd been proud of the accomplishment, and happy that she would please her mother (or thought she would). But when she had tried to see herself in the new visage, she'd felt strange, disconnected. The person looking at her from out of the mirror was normal, looked like everyone else, could blend in. But it wasn't her, it wasn't Rose of the Dark Castle, daughter of Rumplestiltskin and Lady Belle. She wasn't the girl who had punched Freddy the fuller's son for calling her lizard girl, or Princess Emma's friend and partner in adventure (and sometimes trouble). She didn't know who this person was.

"I don't know," Rose said finally. "Sometimes I wish I was like everyone else. But then, I'm not me, and I don't want to be anyone but myself. As long as you really don't..." she started, biting her lip in a move completely unconsciously exactly like her mother. "You don't like me better like this?"

"No, of course not, sweetheart. We love who you are, not how you look. As long as you are happy, that's what matters," Belle said.

"You are the most beautiful girl in the world," Rumplestiltskin said. "Barring your mother, of course. The question is, what do you want to do now?"

 

Rumplestiltskin was curled up in their bedroom, Belle in his arms. "What is it love?" he asked. She had been quiet for most of the evening.

"I suppose I am wondering what I did. I mean, it's possible I said something that could be taken that way. I mean, I've always wanted her to be a little more outgoing. I worry about her being afraid to meet people, of being closed off. Maybe...did we do something wrong, Rumple, to make her think we wanted her to be different?"

"I don't know, love," he said. "I don't think so. I thought you always handled it better than I. I've always feared for her. Being different myself, I've never wished it on my children, it's enough that they have to have me for a father."

"You've been a good father. A little overprotective, but that's only natural. I think we will always worry. I just home that she knows she can always come to us, rather than looking to magic for a solution."

"It was a lovely piece of magic," Rumplestiltskin said with a smile.

"Rumple."

**Author's Note:**

> There were a couple of ways to go (and I just thought of a cute and fluffy one). This is not that story. But it's a story I thought rather went to the core of this 'verse, about trying to figure out who you are and what being different means.. Please enjoy, read and comment.


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